Global Partitions Lecture Series

May 2021

 

Speakers:

  • Dr. Yasmin Saikia, Professor of History and Hardt-Nickachos Endowed Chair in Peace Studies, Arizona State University
  • Anna Oltman, Lecturer, Human Rights, University College London
  • Heinz Klug, Evjue-Bascom Professor of Law and Sheldon B. Lubar Distinguished Research Chair, UW Law School, and Visiting Professor, School of Law, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

A series of K-12 teacher training workshops around the theme of global partitions.

Each event will consist of a 45-60 minute presentation by an expert regional scholar followed by discussion and a Q&A session. All events will take place virtually.

 

Cosponsors: Institute for Regional and International Studies (IRIS), Center for European Studies (ES),   African Studies Program (ASP), and the Center for South Asia (CSA) at UW-Madison. 

Presentations and Resources

“The Told and Untold Stories of the Partitions on the Indian Subcontinent”

Topic: Impact of partition on Bangladesh

Yasmin Saikia is the Hardt-Nickachos Chair in Peace Studies at the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict and a professor of history in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies at Arizona State University. Her work focuses on the histories of memory and identity; women, war, and peace; histories of premodern and contemporary South Asia (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) and engaging the history of Islam and Islamic values of peace. She is the author of the award-winning books, “Fragmented Memory: Struggling to be Tai-Ahom in India” (Duke, 2005) and “Women, War, and the Making of Bangladesh: Remembering 1971” (Duke 2010).

RESOURCES

BD-Partition-Timeline

Articles

Book Recommendations

  • Bass, Gary J. (2013) The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide Paperback
  • Blood, Archer K. (2013) The Cruel Birth of Bangladesh – Memoirs of an American Diplomat
  • Chatterji, Joya (1994) Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932-1947
  • Chatterji, Joya (2007) The Spoils of Partition: Bengal and India, 1947-1967
  • Eaton, Richard (1996) The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204-1760
  • Iqbal, Iftekhar (2010) The Bengal Delta: Ecology, State and Social Change, 1840–1943
  • Khan, Yasmin (2008) The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan Paperback
  • Lewis, David (2011) Bangladesh: Politics, Economy and Civil Society
  • Saikia, Yasmin (2011) Women, War, and the Making of Bangladesh: Remembering 1971
  • Willem van Schendel (2020) A History of Bangladesh
  • Zaheer, Hasan (2001) The Separation of East Pakistan – The Rise and Realization of Bengali Muslim Nationalism
  • Zakaria, Anam (2019) 1971: A People’s History from Bangladesh, Pakistan and India Kindle Edition

Media Clips

 

“Irish Partition and Brexit in Historical Context” 

Topic: Brexit’s Impact across the United Kingdom

Dr. Anna Oltman is a lecturer and researcher in international human rights with a focus on the politics of refugees and asylum. She completed her doctoral research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2020, where she taught courses on human rights, international relations, and American foreign policy. Dr. Oltman’s research is on the institutional and political sources of compliance with international human rights agreements. Her current project focuses on the individualized systems through which countries process claims to asylum, what are known as “Refugee Status Determination” procedures, and the shortcomings of individual rights claims for providing protection to vulnerable migrant communities.

RESOURCES

The Border 

Irish History 

Brexit 

Global Partitions: Self-determination in Southern Africa — The contending forces of division and unification from the colonial to post-colonial eras” 

Topic: Historical and colonial contexts in South Africa and beyond

Heinz Klug will present on partition through a historical and contemporary lens. Featuring Southern Africa as the case study, Klug will use these lenses to help attendees understand the conditions that either hinder or facilitate partition, particularly in the colonial and post-colonial context.

Heinz Klug is Evjue-Bascom Professor of Law and the Sheldon B. Lubar Distinguished research Chair at the University of Wisconsin Law School and Visiting Professor in the School of Law at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Growing up in Durban, South Africa, he participated in the anti-apartheid struggle, spent 11 years in exile and returned to South Africa in 1990 as a member of the ANC Land Commission and researcher for Zola Skweyiya, chairperson of the ANC Constitutional Committee. He was also a team member on the World Bank mission to South Africa on Land Reform and Rural Restructuring. He has taught at Wisconsin since September 1996.